Thornmere Pawns the Spare Bellows

The Antswarm’s hauling song came through the party wall before their runner did, all hands on the glass and every verse ending in a shout, so Ilse Thornmere knew the link was theirs before she read the slip. Kit Lammas read it to her anyway, standing in Spider’s doorway with his cap in both hands: three thousand and some aboard at a drop and a bit, a great band in grey nobody could sort, and one traveller who had paid six hundred drops a span to be sure of his seat.

“Six hundred,” Kit said. “One man. And the Foundry’s floor-man was at the pump this morning, saying they pay Thursdays now, on time, out of the loan.”

“One man doesn’t light a floor. Marrow’s lot will eat off the gift like the rest of us, and the Foundry’s loan comes due before the Halvenfall whether the Lantern holds or not.”

“My crew can’t eat a due date, mistress.”

She looked at the spare bellows in the corner, wrapped in oilcloth since spring, the good leather one her House had kept against a bad winter. Then she told him to carry it down to the factor’s cart at the foot of the terrace and bring back whatever it fetched, every coin, for his crew’s pay to the Book’s end.

Kit hesitated, then lifted it. Next door the Antswarm started another verse.